vi almost unusable in recovery console

[Brian McKee]

Hi All

I'm trying to edit an fstab with vi using the ubuntu alternate cd's
'recover a broken system' option.
I'm using the alternate cd because this system has a mix of regular
and LVM partitions, and IIRC the live cd doesn't grok that.

The problem is the console it drops you into has a term type of
'bterm' or similar, which vi guesses is ansi - with very mixed
results.   The screen doesn't refresh properly etc etc. So, two
questions:

1 - is there any way to get a better terminal?  or a different TERM I
can tell vi it is for better results?

2 - what the heck package would I report a bug against?  or am I
wishing for the impossible?

(yes, that's four questions - sue me :-)

Note that nano doesn't work right either - and emacs isn't available.

Comments?  Suggestions?

Brian